A couple of days ago, I overheard a conversation that I found quite interesting, and I'd like to share it with you:
Asked Distributor A, "How's your business this year?" Answer: Good. Why? Answer: Because of community group buying.
Asked Distributor B, "How's your business this year?" Answer: Not good. Why? Answer: Because of community group buying.
The deeper meaning behind this is something every distributor caught in the whirlwind of community group buying understands clearly. I won't delve into the reasons behind it.
Today, we're not talking about community group buying, but about the distributors' own business. If you ask distributors about their business situation, the answer is invariably: getting worse year by year.
Business is tough, group buying is impacting, consumption is shifting, e-commerce is rising, management is constrained, and growth is stagnant. Traditional distributors are facing challenges from various new business formats in the new environment.
Whenever new business formats emerge, the slogans they shout are strikingly similar: improve supply chain efficiency, reduce circulation links, meet consumers' product needs, and provide more abundant and better products.
Actually, the logic behind this is: shorten the intermediate links, eliminate distributors, and reach consumers directly.
Every change in the retail landscape affects distributors to some extent. Facing these changes, how to quickly adapt, keep up with the pace, adjust in time, and break through the predicament of declining sales or stagnant growth is a topic every distributor must think about and explore.
At this point, many distributors might wonder if there's a magic bullet or a standard answer.
To be honest, there isn't! If you're going out of business because of community group buying, then you've really been eliminated!
Please don't attribute the main reason to community group buying, because it's really just the trigger. The core reason is that over the past period—1 year, 5 years, or longer—you haven't truly built your own core competitiveness.
Competitiveness in service, scale, and products.
It's understandable if your business declines or growth stagnates due to community group buying.
If your business closes due to community group buying, look for the reasons within yourself.
If you're just a mover, transporting goods from point A to point B, without providing service, maintenance, or promotion, and earning a meager profit of 7-8 percentage points, can you withstand external risks?
In the past, distributors constantly thought of themselves as the "sandwich layer," squeezed from both ends. But ask yourself: which business sector isn't claiming to be the "sandwich layer," suffering from both sides?
Small and medium brands are constrained upstream by raw material suppliers, unable to reduce costs, and downstream by the frontline market, unable to increase sales; small and medium stores are constrained upstream by distributors, with poor after-sales service and too little profit, and downstream by consumers, with fewer and fewer visits.
Isn't it like this in every field?
Look at who doesn't complain or doesn't consider themselves the "sandwich layer."
Top-tier brands, national chain supermarkets, and regional big distributors. Their predicament is never about cooperation with upstream and downstream, but always about how to make more consumers like, buy, and buy more!
What should distributors who haven't fallen do in the face of change?
The only and best method is not defense or protection, but breaking through and growing.
Growth solves a thousand worries!
On July 8-9, New Distribution's 8th Distributor Practical Growth Course will be held in Luoyang, Henan. Regional big distributors will share their business growth methodologies, and we'll visit warehouses to observe the business processes of excellent big distributors. Learn and borrow, so that growth doesn't stop because of the harsh environment.
This course has three highlights: Practical Courses + Study Tours + E-commerce Cooperation, hoping to bring business inspiration, peer learning, and development opportunities to distributor friends.
For detailed meeting arrangements, please see the poster below → To register, please scan the QR code at the bottom to consult →
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